In Chapter 24, Dobbin confronts Mr. Osborne after Osborne forbids his son, George, from marrying Amelia Sedley—whose family has just lost its fortune following Napoleon's return to power. Their altercation is an exercise in dramatic irony for the reader:
“Marry her indeed—he, he! why should he? I warrant you she’d go to him fast enough without.”
“Sir,” said Dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger; “no man shall abuse that lady in my hearing, and you least of all.”
“O, you’re going to call me out, are you? Stop, let me ring the bell for pistols for tow. Mr. George sent you here to insult his father, did he?” Osborne said…
“Mr. Osborne,” said Dobbin… “it’s you who are insulting the best creature in the world. You had best spare her, Sir, for she’s your son’s wife.”
While Dobbin's impassioned defense of Amelia to her father-in-law may come as a surprise to Osborne himself, the reader is well aware that Dobbin is in love with Amelia—and that defending Amelia, and otherwise supporting her best interests, is the only way he can express this love.
In a novel full of dysfunctional families, the dynamic between Osborne, George, and Amelia is particularly tense. Osborne wields his ability to disinherit both his son and daughter-in-law like a weapon, and his preoccupation with family legacy—which is to say, family money—is a major example of Vanity Fair's thematic exploration of the convoluted intersection between greed, family, and social class.
In Chapter 44, the Becky and Rawdon Crawley struggle to maintain their lavish lifestyle with what little wealth they have left. As tensions mount, Becky's treatment of her son, Rawdy, worsens, and the Crawleys' servants begin to mutter amongst themselves about Becky's erratic behavior—and her possible affair with Lord Steyne, who shows up frequently at the Crawley residence. Thackeray emphasizes the subversive power of gossiping servants in a series of metaphorical allusions:
If you are guilty, tremble. That fellow behind your chair may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his plush breeches pocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of appearances: which are as ruinous as guilt.
‘Was Rebecca guilty or not?’ The Vehmgericht of the servants’ hall had pronounced against her.
This double allusion affirms the considerable power that servants hold over their masters: a Janissary was a legendary soldier in the Ottoman sultan's infantry, said to carry strings to strangle enemies of the sultan, while the Vehmgericht was a semi-secret court in medieval Germany that dealt out death sentences to convicted criminals. By comparing a butler waiting "behind your chair" to a Janissary and the institution of the servants' hall to the Vehmgericht, Thackeray emphasizes the devastating role that servants can play in destroying the reputation of even the most prominent families. There is considerable situational irony in Becky's predicament: her household staff is at once a sign of the social class she has worked so hard to attain and a possible source of her downfall.
In Chapter 45, Becky attempts to charm Sir Pitt (Pitt Crawley) in order to secure some part of his fortune for herself. She resorts to flattery and also makes an appeal Sir Pitt's sense of ambition, using a metaphor to get the point across—but not without fostering some dramatic irony:
I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes think I should not be unworthy of him – but – but I am your kinswoman now,’ she added with a laugh. ‘Poor little penniless I have got a little interest – and who knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the lion.’
Yet again, Becky proves her facility for manipulation. In this case, she casts herself as a metaphorical mouse who, perhaps because of its size, speed, or cunning, might be able to offer some service to Sir Pitt's lion. There is a gendered component to this comparison, in which Sir Pitt plays the role of the large fierce predator and Becky plays the small, skittish prey, but there's also a certain amount of dramatic irony at play, since the reader has, by now, seen the ways in which Becky can use her traditionally "feminine" qualities to be a vicious, ruthless opponent to all who get in her way—if anything, she is the lion in the situation.
In Chapter 49, Lord Steyne beats back accusations of Becky's impropriety as his social circle catches wind of the possible affair between the two. Thackeray emphasizes the passion behind Steyne's defense through the use of hyperbole and metaphor:
As for Mrs Crawley’s character, I shan’t demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreprochable lady, by even hinting that it requires a defence. You will be pleased to receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom I present in this house. This house?’ He broke out with a laugh. ‘Who is the master of it? and what is it? This Temple of Virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all Newgate or all Bedlam here, by — they shall be welcome.’
Lord Steyne's support for Becky hinges on the hyperbolic assertion that she is "spotless" and "irreproachable" and apparently perfect—a fountain of dramatic irony for the reader, who is well aware of Becky's duplicitous and manipulative behavior, of which London society is only beginning to grow suspicious. Steyne then issues a metaphorical comparison between his house and a "Temple of Virtue" over which he has absolute power, like some sort of despotic priest. Steyne's insistence on his virtue—and the supposed virtues of his consort—only serves to underscore his deep vanity.
In Chapter 51, Becky hosts a game of charades at Lord Steyne's residence with an ancient Greek theme, complete with abridged versions of Greek drama that the participants put on between charade guesses. In one such interlude, Thackeray uses an allusion to Aeschylus's tragic play Oresteia as a source of sinister foreshadowing:
A tremor ran through the room. ‘Good God!’ somebody said, ‘it’s Mrs Rawdon Crawley.’ Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Ægisthus’s hand, and advantances to the bed. You see it shining over her head in the glimmer of the lamp, and – and the lamp goes out with a groan, and all is dark.
In this truncated version of Oresteia, Becky plays the part of Clytemnestra—a figure from Greek mythology who falls in love with Aegisthus while her husband, the legendary Greek king Agamemnon, is away to fight the Trojan War. To be with Aegisthus, and to avenge her daughter, Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon sacrifices in the war effort, Clytemnestra ultimately kills her husband.
By casting Becky as Clytemnestra in this sequence, Thackeray not-so-subtly hints at the disastrous events of the next few chapters. Like Clytemnestra, Becky will cause the death of her husband as a result of an illicit affair: through her seductive manipulation of Lord Steyne, Becky secures Rawdon, her husband, a government post in a far-off colony—where he promptly dies of disease.
As could be expected, given this context, Becky plays the part of Clytemnestra with aplomb:
Rebecca performed her part so well, and with such ghastly truth, that the spectators were all dumb, until, with a burst, all the lamps of the hall blazed out again, when everybody began to shout applause. ‘Brava! brava!’ old Steyne’s strident voice was heard roaring over all the rest. ‘By —, she’d do it too,’ he said between his teeth. The performers were called by the whole house, which sounded with cries of ‘Manager! Clytemnestra!’
The "ghastly truth" of Becky's performance is more real than the audience can suspect: Becky barely has to act to play her role, and merely taps into her sinister nature that she has, thus far, managed to hide from English society. She cannot keep up appearances indefinitely, however—while Steyne's effusive praise for Becky makes sense in the context of her performance, he won't be able to mask his impropriety for much longer.
Clytemnestra's is an archetypal example of female power in Greek literature—in the face of an impossibly cruel world, she takes her life into her own hands and escapes the restrictions of her identity as Agamemnon's wife. Likewise, although Becky's manipulation causes no shortage of harm over the course of Vanity Fair, it is also the source of her agency—her ability to rise above the restrictions of her gender role in 19th-century England.
In Chapter 55, Becky tries to convince the new Sir Pitt (Pitt Crawley) to believe her claim that she only involved herself with Lord Steyne in an attempt to negotiate a better future for her husband. Her entire appeal stokes dramatic irony in the reader:
Your genius and Lord Steyne’s interest made it more than probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an end to all our hopes. But, first, I own that it was my object to rescue my dear husband – him whom I love in spite of all his ill-usage and suspicions of me – to remove him from the poverty and ruin which was impending over us. I saw Lord Steyne’s partiality for me,’ she said, casting down her eyes. ‘I own that I did everything in my power to make myself pleasing to him, and as far as an honest woman may, to secure his – his esteem.
With the help of a narrator who is by no means impartial, the reader can never take Becky's words at face value. She is a master manipulator, and her nest of lies—to which the reader is privy, when the narrator deems it appropriate—is ever-expanding in service of her unending quest for wealth and social status. In this passage, the reader is well aware of Becky's self-serving, borderline adulterous relationship with Lord Steyne, but the reader can only watch as she begins to sway Sir Pitt over to her side.
